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O THOU MIGHTY 
RIVER 



BY 

FRANK D. WOOLLEN 






O THOU MIGHTY RIVER 

I sit at my window looking out upon one of the 
noblest rivers of the world. It is the Autumn of the 
year, and along the glorious river the hills rise a Per- 
sian-vestured host resplendent in a million rainbow 
banners and emblazoned jewelry. Little villages clus- 
ter in white dots here and there, and here and there 
a burnished spire points a silent finger to heaven. 
Deepest Tyrian are the skyey depths which arch 
the visible world, save where a squadron of Jason's 
snowy galleons float seaward wandering in quest of 
the unattainable. It all seems mere like a dream out 
of the Arabian Nights than anything real; more like 
the beatific Elysian Fields than aught of earthly ex- 
istence. 

Water, sky, hills, — profuse and supernal beauty ! 
Dream within dream. Not a sound to break the spell. 
Only the hazy smoke from a distant hearth fire wing- 
ing its Icarian flight. Only the passing heralds of 
Life and Death. 

Beauty that must die; 
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, 
Bidding adieu. 

For Winter stalks behind. And, then, what shall re- 
call these darling images again? What shall make 
this transciency abide? What but the magic of that 
mighty river of Poesy, that mirror which reflects in 
its bosom the heavens and the earth and all seasons 
and all hours. 

Past ruined llion Helen lives, 
Alcestis rises from the shades. 



"/3 






Verse calls them forth; verse revives the asphodels 
where their feet have trod, and bids the dry-bed 
Tiber run as before. Poesy,* that fine excess.* Idea 
wedded to imagination. Emotion clothed in wings. 
The radiant butterfly bursting from the chrysalis of 
thought, beating upward to the blue from the dumb 
husk. Soul-pouring flood, heaven aspiring spirit that 
will not be confined and cannot die. The vision and 
the dream, the flower and the flame, the planting and 
the fruit, the cherished and the cherishing. 

O thou mighty river flowing through the King- 
dom of the Blessed since the world began, to whom 
more than to thee shall we turn for consolation and 
sustenance and enduring hope? Thou inviolable 
stream of immortal transport, in which we haggard 
beings lave our languid bodies and retone our tar- 
nished souls; give us to kneel more often at thy 
crystal fountains, more nearly to immolate our altars 
on thy pellucid shrine; and, when the time cometh, 
and no more shall we hear thy music, nor feed of 
thy kindly countenance, bear us, O river, on thy ma- 
jestic bosom to the sea where thou goest, even to the 
Ultima Thule where our loves have passed before, 
that we may there also heal us of our grievous 
wounds. 



Of this edition of O Thou Mighty River fifty copies have been 
printed by Edwin B. Hill on his private press at Ysleta, Texas. 



